A Sudanese health worker carries a placard during protests in the capital Khartoum on May 23, 2019. PHOTO | ASHRAF SHAZLY | AFP
KHARTOUM
Sudanese protest
leaders on Wednesday turned down an offer by the ruling military council
for talks and demanded justice for a crackdown that doctors said has
left 108 people dead.
Security forces moved in to brutally disperse a protest sit-in on Monday.
The
Rapid Support Forces, paramilitaries said by rights groups to have
their origins in the Janjaweed militias accused of abuses during the
16-year-old conflict in Darfur, are thought to have been largely behind
the crackdown.
The Central Committee for Sudanese
Doctors close to the protest movement said on Wednesday that at least
108 people had been killed in the crackdown, including 40 whose bodies
were recovered from the Nile, and more than 500 wounded.
Sudan
has been controlled by a military council since it ousted veteran
president Omar al-Bashir in April after protesters demanded an end to
his authoritarian rule before agreeing a three-year transition period to
a civilian administration.
ELECTION
But army ruler
General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan said following the crackdown that the
agreement had been ditched and an election would take place within nine
months -- a plan rejected by demonstrators.
On
Wednesday, however, Burhan said those in "the military council open our
arms to negotiate with no restriction", an offer that the protest
leaders were quick to reject.
"The Sudanese people are
not open for talks," said Amjad Farid, a spokesman for the Sudanese
Professionals Association (SPA) which spearheaded protests that led to
the ouster of Bashir.
"The Sudanese people are not open
to this TMC (Transitional Military Council) that kills people and we
need justice and accountability before talks about any political
process," he told AFP.
Farid said both the SPA and
umbrella protest group the Alliance for Freedom and Change would
"continue using all non-violent tools and civil disobedience in
resisting the TMC".
The rejection came after the
commander of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces accused of carrying
out the deadly crackdown insisted the country would not be allowed to
slip into "chaos".
"We will not allow chaos... we must
impose the authority of the state through law," Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo,
deputy chief of the military council, told his forces in a televised
address.
OVERWHELMED
Hospitals
in Khartoum said they were struggling to cope with the number of
wounded after security forces on Monday raided a weeks-long sit-in
outside army headquarters.
"The situation is very
difficult. Most of the hospitals have taken in more casualties than they
have capacity for," a doctor who works at two hospitals in the city
told AFP.
"There's a shortage of medical staff, a shortage of blood," said the doctor, who asked not to be named.
"Among the wounded there are still people in a serious condition and I expect the number of deaths to rise."
EID CELEBRATIONS
There was a heavy security presence as worshippers in some neighbourhoods came out to mark the Eid al-Fitr festival.
There was a heavy security presence as worshippers in some neighbourhoods came out to mark the Eid al-Fitr festival.
In Omdurman, just across the Nile from Khartoum, security forces were seen patrolling in machine-gun mounted trucks.
Protest leaders have called on their supporters to take part in "total civil disobedience" to topple the military council.
On
Wednesday, hundreds of residents of north Khartoum blocked off streets
with rocks, and waited by them in silence, a witness told AFP.
In the distance gunfire was heard.
The
United Nations said late Wednesday it was relocating some of its staff
away from Khartoum, while Britain warned its citizens against all but
essential travel and decided to pull non-essential staff from its
embassy.
INTERVENTION
The
Sudanese Doctors Union accused security forces of attacks on hospitals
and staff across the country, and alleged some women had been raped in
an area of the capital without giving details of how the group had
learned of the assaults.
A push for the UN Security
Council to condemn the killing of civilians and call on the military and
protesters to work together was blocked by China, which was backed by
Russia, during a closed-door meeting on Tuesday.
Eight
European countries instead issued their own joint statement criticising
"the violent attacks in Sudan by Sudanese security services against
civilians".
The US called on the military rulers to "desist from violence" and urged talks with protesters to resume.
Amnesty
International called on the African Union and the UN to "take immediate
action to hold the perpetrators of this violence accountable".
The
British ambassador to Khartoum, Irfan Siddiq, called for an end to the
internet outages that have plagued the country since the crackdown.
"In
these critical times it is essential that everyone can communicate,
particularly to urge messages of keeping things calm and peaceful," he
tweeted.
Top US envoy David Hale, under secretary of
state for political affairs, underlined the importance of a transition
to a civilian-led government in a phone call with the Saudi deputy
defence minister, Khalid bin Salman, the State Department said.
Saudi Arabia, a key backer of the military rulers, called for a resumption of "dialogue between the various parties of Sudan".
No comments :
Post a Comment